Lew Rockwell just smacked down Jacob Heilbrunn’s exquisitely conventional analysis of the Fed — why, it balances inflation, interest rates, and employment for us! — in which Heilbrunn also argues that opponents of the Fed are animated by sinister motives, including (what else?) anti-Semitism.  That would be news to Murray Rothbard, arguably the greatest Fed opponent of the twentieth century.  In fact, the whole thing is so anti-intellectual as to be almost unworthy of a response.  No actual evaluation of anti-Fed arguments — apparently there is no downside to fiddling with market interest rates — and opponents of the Fed are all lumped together in the interest of the stupidest and most ignorant case of guilt by association I have ever seen.

This is no real surprise; the usual establishment response to independent thought is to smear anyone who dissents from the official line.  Citizen, why would you criticize, rather than bow down before, your wise overlords?  You must be deranged.

But if I may quote a little something from our dear overlord, here’s the love letter to Obama he wrote last year: “Whether or not the [health care] bill contains a Medicare expansion, Obama is exactly right to say that it represents the biggest potential Democratic accomplishment since the establishment of Social Security. Little Joe Lieberman can pout and strut all he wants, but ultimately he’ll be a mere footnote in the history of the bill.

“The blunt fact is that Obama has been president for one measly year. Compared to the blunders that other presidents have committed early on, Obama is looking good. If the economy improves, he will look even better. So ignore the tedious and hypertrophied Obama bashers. And never forget that he is as as good and intelligent and decent a president as America will ever have. He still has a chance to become one of the greatest. Eight years from now, after Obama has successfully served two terms, that judgment may well look like a commonplace.”

Obama is “good and intelligent and decent.” But if you wonder about the Federal Reserve, and base your opinions of it on something other than its own press releases, you must be destroyed.